"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive
your brother from your heart." Matthew 18:35
In Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, a street-witnessing team became involved in an
extraordinary situation. A young Mexican called Samuel would walk for two hours
each day to join them and act as an interpreter. They discovered that Samuel's
mother and sister had been murdered and that he witnessed the killings but,
despite trying to intervene, was unable to stop them. He said he knew the man
who did it.
He had a desire to go and avenge the killings, but then became a Christian
and his whole attitude changed. He began a Bible study group now attended by
twenty people. On the final night of the meetings, he saw the man he believed
had murdered his mother and sister go forward to receive Jesus Christ as his
Savior. Samuel made his way through the throng of people and shook his hand and
welcomed him “into the Kingdom.” Samuel was able to forgive him.
In Jesus’ teaching, there is little doubt that, as a Christian, I MUST
forgive those who have wronged me. Then our human, time-bound minds cry out with
the loud fleshly inquiry—“WHY?”
Again Philip Yancey points out that through the process of forgiveness we
realize we are not as different from the wrongdoer as we would like to think.
And we end up linked on the same side.
In essence, God linked Himself with us humans in the incarnation. Somehow God
had to come to terms with these creatures He desperately wanted to love. On
earth, living among us, he learned what it was like to be human—yet without sin.
But He put Himself on our side. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for
us.
Forgiveness is a key component of the victorious, overcomer. This is the way
of the cross to becoming “more than conquerors.”
As a young Christian in Cambodia, Cham witnessed a Khmer Rouge soldier—a
youth he knew from school—bludgeon his mother to death by hitting her repeatedly
over the head with a wooden board.
Cham suffered from severe depression over memories of that incident for many
months. But eventually the Lord helped him gain victory over it.
Ten years later, Cham was walking down the main street of Phnom Penh and saw
that young man who had killed his mother. The young man was very fearful of
revenge when he recognized Cham approaching him. With moist eyes Cham looked at
him and said, “In the name of Jesus, I forgive you!” Cham was free.
RESPONSE: I accept today that forgiveness is a must for me as a follower
of Jesus.
PRAYER: Thank you, Lord, for so many rich examples of the freeing beauty
of forgiveness.
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